Conformal theories with an infrared cutoff

Abstract

We give a new perspective on the dynamics of conformal theories realized in the SU(N) gauge theory, when the number of flavors N_f is within the conformal window. Motivated by the renormalization group argument on conformal theories with a finite IR cutoff Λ_IR, we conjecture that the propagator of a meson GH(t) on a lattice behaves at large t as a power-law corrected Yukawa-type decaying form G_(H)(t)=c˜^~_(H)exp(-m^~_(H)t)/t^(αH) instead of the exponentially decaying form c_(H)exp(-mHt), in the small quark mass region where m_H≤cΛ_IR: m_H is the mass of the ground state hadron in the channel H and c is a constant of order 1. The transition between the "conformal region" and the "confining region" is a first order transition. Our numerical results verify the predictions for the N_f=7 case and the N_f=16 case in the SU(3) gauge theory with the fundamental representation.

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